The Sound of Madness

By Silvia Clemente, Joe Coombs
The Red Room
B/X
Level 4-5

Once again, the orc tribes have come down from the mountains south of the Andril river and raided the region’s farms. This happens frequently, but this time it is different. The orcs are now more savage and brutal and seem to be driven by the single purpose of killing the people of Andril.

This 36 page adventure describes nothing but some random events and a general idea for an ending. It’s a fucking mess. It also has, I believe, the best mood setting events I’ve ever seen in an adventure. 

You’re a ragtag thrown together band of mercenaries and fighters, in an earls army. You’re out stopping an orc invasion. You get in a fight and end up on the wrong side of a river … orc territory! And then you start to hear some strange humming throughout the air, permeating it. That’s what happens here. That’s it. You follow the humming, and a page of backstory tells you about a gnome, a cave with some machinery, and an orc tribe that eats blue mushrooms. I want to emphasize that NOTHING happens in this adventure. There are no locations. Nothing is keyed. The “ending”, with the gnome and cave is just some text, some backstory. There’s nothing there to run. You start at your camp, have a camp encounter that night, end up in a battle and on the wrong side of the river, have some random mood setting shit while you “search” for a way back across the river, get attacked by orcs every night, and hear the humming. Presumably the DM then makes a bunch of shit up to find the cave and more shit to run the cave, from scratch. Just like the DM made up a bunch of shit to run the wilderness travel to find the way back over the river … that has no details either. And I mean NOTHING.

I knew this was going to be a hard one when I was seventeen pages in and all there was is art and some pregens. (Which double as NPC’s) I can’t emphasize enough that there is NOTHING in this.

And yet …

The designer has one of the best talents I’ve ever seen for setting a mood. (Admittedly, a grim mood I’m rather fond of.) I mean GUUUUUUUUUUD.

So you start off at this mercenary/army camp. The lieutenant is dead. The new dude is not so good. Pushing the men too hard. Blinded by the reward of potentially marrying the earls daughter. “The troops are tired and eerie, morale is low, and the men are starting to suspect they are being used as cannon fodder.” I get it! I can run that vibe! There are some events to have at camp that night, on a d6 table. Someone accuses a PC of stealing, the luitenant searches them and finds the object. Or someone accuses you of cheating during a card game and pulls a knife. Everyone is momentarily happy as someone pulls some eels from the river .. only to have everyone throw up after because they are poison. Some potential mutiny conspiracy talk … it FEELS like a rough army camp with low morale and dangerous people in it. 

The next morning the scout says orcs are nearby so you all set off, as a troop. You find them and have a fight. There’s no real stats or anything. The DM is told to have a huge number press the party and keep doing so until they retreat in to the river, to get swept away … because that has to happen to get the party to the other side. Obvious railroad is obvious. If we think of this as not a B/X adventure but a 5e plot thing then I’ll allow a little pushing of the buttons to make some things happen, especially since this is the reason the adventure exists.

On the other side they are confused and drenched, maybe missing some stuff. “Add a couple of human corpses floating along for some colour, someone the characters remember from the company.” Nice! I’m in to this!

Then you hunt for a way back across … which is not handled in any way other than those words I just typed. Some events along the way are eerie, in a Blair Witch or Apoc Now way. COming across a totem. Something in the foliage you can’t see. A pile of rotting orc bodies, with nauseating smell and disgusting look. A palisad with mummified human heads impaled on wooden stakes … assign to keep away. With “They find an old rotten chest filled with gold coins and jewels. It is a great bounty, but carrying it will encumber them.” That’s all you get. A camp, with signs of being occupied recently. Strange bones found among the ashes … that can’t be identified. Great great great mood setting! This is the way you to set the fucking mood.

The rest is shit. You get attacked every night and the orcs drag off an NPC. Yawn. There is, though, a GREAT description of the orcs “The Pukas wear no clothes, except for stretches of leather, made from the hides of creatures they slay. They wear these as ornaments, and they also make masks from the skin of their prey. It is a Puka tradition to wear the face of the last enemy one has killed. Every night the Pukas will come for the party.” Perfect! And … “When the characters finally come face to face with one of the Puka orcs, they will be wearing the torn face of the missing NPCs.”

So, great mood setting. Great monster description … but, also, no real emphasis on the other side of the river being orc country. That could have been done better. Also, the abstraction of the adventure is a problem. No real ending. No real wilderness travel. No real adventure, to be honest.

Great vibe though, for the adventure that doesn’t exist. Even the titular Sound of Madness. Lame.

This is $2.50 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages and shows you nothing worthwhile to help make a purchasing decision.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/398329/World-of-Bastards-The-Sound-of-Madness?1892600